03/14/10- Congrats to Dina and John on their Engagement! Can't wait for their big day in 2011!
09/24/09- National Endowment of the Arts Heritage Awards Performance in Washington, D.C. Congratulations to Sophiline Cheam Shapiro for this great achievement!
A family torn apart by war only to be reunited in a far away land. A brother’s jealously leads to the death of another. A dirt lot in the City of Long Beach plus the creative minds of the Collage Dance Theatre and Khmer Arts Academy equals modern day story of those two tales: Expulsion.
And if you’d like to see the rest of the photos from Expulsion, you can find them here!
So what’s there to do on a Sunday afternoon in a vacant dirt lot on a nondescript corner of Long Beach? Plenty if you’re one of the Collage Dance Theatre or Khmer Arts Academy dancers practicing for an upcoming performance. About two months ago Heidi Duckler of the Collage Dance Theatre approached the dancers of Khmer Arts Academy with an offer to collaborate on something new and different for The Arts Council for Long Beach’s A LOT series. The product of that collaboration is Expulsion. Which is, as quoted from the Collage Dance Theatre’s website:
“Expulsion”, a new work from Heidi Duckler and Collage Dance Theatre will activate a vacant lot in Cambodia Town. Based on the themes of immigration and displacement, this cross-disciplinary site performance will explore the temporary, often fragile nature of “home.”
So I don’t want to spoil it for you but it’s definitely going to be something new and different if you’re expecting a traditional performance from KAA. Part of the collaboration between the Collage Dance Theatre and KAA was meant to push both groups to their creative boundaries as both groups had to be able to adapt to and create a new performance to fit not only fit the theme of Expulsion, but location and setting as well. So while you’ll probably recognize a lot of what’s taken from traditional Classical Cambodian Dance, this performance features new choreography that was created exclusively for Expulsion. I should also say that the new dance combined with the acrobatic performance of the Collage Dance Theatre should definitely keep you entertained. But that’s enough for me, on to the photos!
Anyways I hope you enjoyed that little sneak peak. If you want to see the rest of the performance in full you’ll have to show up to that nondescript vacant dirt lot on either March 19th or March 20th at 6 pm. For more information about Expulsion or the Collage Dance Theatre you can visit their site here or just take a look below.
Date: March 19th and 20th, 2011.
Time: 6:00 pm.
Location: 1546 E. Anaheim Street, Long Beach, CA 90813. At the intersection of Anaheim and Walnut across from Mark Twain Library.
Ever had one of those days that you had been looking forward to for quite awhile and as that day came closer it actually became further and further away? Well I’m not sure if Monique and Leo felt that way about yesterday but I sure did! After a little bit of bad luck with the normally sunny Southern California weather, a change in location due to some unforeseen problems and a little bit of conflict in our schedules we were finally able to sneak in Monique and Leo’s engagement session yesterday. I had also thought that we had struck gold with the weather since the day started out great with some beautiful 80 degree temps and cloud free skies! That, however, quickly took a turn in the opposite once the sun started setting and the chilled air started to rear it’s head. Fortunately though, Monique and Leo (and my lovely assistant Julie of course) were troopers about it and stuck it out till the end even though it was becoming bitterly cold. Okay, maybe not quite bitterly cold but it was cold enough since there wasn’t a jacket or sweater to be seen on any of us. But anyways, that’s enough from me. On to the photos, Enjoy!
So for those of you who don’t know, I have a pug named Sojo. Actually he’s more Julie’s dog than mine these days since I’m always on the road but you get the point. Anyways he’s a very special dog and while we were at the beach earlier today he gave me a nice smile with this pose and out came this shot. And since the shot of Sojo (and Julie just in case you thought I forgot) was so lovely, I figured I would post it to give him some love too since he has yet to receive any on my blog. So here you go Sojo, enjoy your 15 minutes of internet fame!
